She Dances
by MissAnnThropic
Summary: I am taken with her now, but already I know I will grow to love her.


Title: She Dances  
Author: MissAnnThropic  
Spoilers: Stargate the movie  
Summary: I am taken with her now, but already I know I will grow to love her.  
Disclaimer: I own nothing to do with Stargate but my rabid fan behavior. Alas.

* * *

For an archaeologist this is a dream come true. For all intents and purposes these people, these Abydonians, _are_ ancient Egypt. They're direct descendants but so much more than that; they're culturally _still_ those people. They live by the laws of the old polytheism. These are Ra's people.

Or they were. Academicians back home have no idea how wrong we were in thinking the gods of those ancient days were just stories. They were real, and that's terrifying when you know the stories and the gods. Had anyone thought they were _real_... Ancient Egyptian mythology is filled with bloodshed and oppression. War gods and vengeful gods. I know enough to feel a thousand years of sorrow for these people. We humans on Earth were spared this life of servitude.

But now so too do the Abydonians lead the lives of free men and women. Ra is gone. And I am here, among these people who, until now, have been no more than glyphs on a wall or paint on papyrus to me. I am living what I could never dream to live.

And then there's Sha're.

The rest of the team, Colonel O'Neill and Freddie and Kowalski, are gone. I'm the only one who stayed. How could I not? This is the holy land to me. This would be like a Catholic priest finding God's kingdom and being given the chance to stay, to walk among angels.

I'm reminded of Sha're.

The Abydonians are having a party, and though the supplies are meager the spirit is not lacking. The walls are dancing with their laughter, the sands are swirling in beat with the drums, and I'm swept away in living history.

Simple robes, no concept of machinery before the arrival of the Earth-men, individuals' worlds confined by the high walls of the city, the only hint of life in a desert, an oasis of hospitality and cheer.

The food is gritty and unprocessed, the milk sweet and thick... nothing's cold, the only degrees of temperature for the food is warm or fire-heated hot. Even Egypt has lost some of this charm, for all the roots they maintain to their ancient past. The Abydonians think of the nearby pyramid as the abode of a recently living deity. There is no ancient to them, only the sand-blasted present.

More food than I could ever hope to eat is shoved into my hands and I feel like a child at Halloween. My new friends are crowded around me, laughing and touching and jostling because to these people physical contact is sacrosanct. I'm one of them now and they pull me in with a hundred hands.

"Dan-yel!" Skaara says into my ear as he flips the silver lighter in his fingers. It's out of place here, but no more so than my glasses or blue eyes.

"Maytha, Skaara," I ask as he leans heavily into my back and I have to brace myself to take his weight. This is my brother now. The Abydonians don't have concepts as complicated as 'in-law'. Skaara is my brother and Kasuf my father.

I never thought a journey through space would bring me a family, the first I've had in such a very long time.

Skaara laughs and prods me and the others sway and undulate around me in mirth. I'm carried in its tide and smile before I know what's so funny. Their language is not exactly ancient Egyptian, but it's close and I'm learning very quickly. Joyful immersion.

Skaara points and I look and I'm enchanted anew. Sha're is on the other side of the fire with two of her friends, but her eyes are trained on me. When I look in her direction she smiles shyly and ducks her head.

My Sha're. I am taken with her now, but already I know I will grow to love her more dearly than anything I have ever loved in my entire life. She has captured me with her desert skin and desert eyes.

One of Sha're's female friends sees us looking at one another and prods Sha're much as Skaara has been heckling me. Love affairs are public affairs here, and everyone delights in Sha're and I finding one another. There's an almost sophomoric glee these people harbor toward new husband and wives, and amid all this oppression and slavery it's full of such innocence.

Sha're is mine, as I am hers, and the village rejoices in our union.

Sha're lifts her eyes again to me and there's something in them that makes me swallow and remember past nights. A glint, a dark flicker in firelight, and the rest of the party fades away. I long to hold her, to bury my hands in her dark, curly hair and feel her body pressed to mine.

My sweet, soft, tender Sha're.

Sha're gives me another tiny smile, this one somehow playful, and I know it is not my imagination that the party has quieted.

I would look around, but I have eyes only for Sha're.

The music stops and for a heartbeat there's only the sound of distant winds against the walls of the city, the bleat and cluck of domesticated animals, and the crackle of the fire. Then the drums resume their speech, this time a deeper, more carnal beat, and those standing around Sha're shrink away to give her space.

Sha're moves like the wind. Not the buffeting, skin-blistering winds that hurl sand with brutal force, but the gentle wafts that make the sand dance just above the ground. She is grace and elegance in a humble, simple package. The most beautiful simplicity.

Sha're moves closer to the fire, her eyes trained on me, and I see a flash in her face of embarrassment and cat-like mischievousness and then she's moving. She's dancing.

I cannot take my eyes from her. I know this dance is for me. Intellectually, I know there must be some cultural significance for her moves, but logic and reason leave me. I'm enraptured by the sway of her hips, the serpentine moves of her arms, the whisper of her robe over her skin, the invitation her body speaks to me. Only me.

Sha're is Cleopatra, Isis, Inanna, Persephone... she is a thousand goddesses in one and better than all the rest for her purity and innocence.

Sha're dances only for me, and I know that the curve of her waist, the almond-tone of her skin, the brown of her eyes, the black of her hair... it's all mine. The Abydonians think of me as a deity for helping kill Ra, but Sha're has made me a god by gifting herself to me. I am what she makes me.

Sha're dances, suggestive and innocent at once, mine and the pantheon's, and I do not regret staying behind. Abydos is my city of gold, my fountain of youth, my Ithaca. So many things crammed into a small, primitive desert village with a luminous beauty in brown robes.

Sha're's eyes snare me, hold me captive and I am drowning in content for it, and she smiles for me.

Only me.

This is home. It's in the sandstone walls and rough-woven robes, it's in the language and the customs... but more than that, it's in the way Sha're dances in the firelight.

I have found my destiny, and it's in the way she dances.

END


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